Colonization by microbes on a wide variety of surfaces and in a variety of materials can cause phenomena such as dirty appearance, smell and even serious hygienic and health problems. Thus there is a great interest in the development of hygienic materials and surfaces which provide biocidal activity and are, at least to some extent, easy to clean or even self-cleaning. There are several attempts to achieve such results by incorporating nano-particles, e.g. on the basis of silver or TiO2: Possible fields of use of coatings or additives leading to the desired surface properties are e.g. architecture and construction, textiled, automobiles and other vehicles for land, air and water, heat exchangers, air conditioning circuits, hygiene, medicine and health e.g. in hospitals, surgery or schools, and food packaging or processing. Among others, the incorporation of nanoparticles into organic resins or ceramics, the deposition in plasma vacuum with deposition of nanoparticles and the like into coatings have been suggested.
On the other hand, certain cationic surfactants are in principle known to be useful as means for cleaning and sometimes even disinfecting surfaces of goods, such as industrial products or consumer articles.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,569,732, bactericidal additives to thermoplastic materials are described that can carry two cationic groups bound to a siloxane moiety.
What is required, though, also in view of the ability of microorganisms to adapt to a variety of adverse circumstances including the development of resistance, are materials/classes of compounds that allow to inhibit fungal growth or even show microbicidal activity against a broad range of microorganisms, e.g. against fungi as well as one or more microorganisms selected from bacteria, yeasts and algae, and/or even have negative influence on the settlement of multicellular organisms, such as algae, mosses or ferns, on and/or in materials or objects and thus are useful inter alia for applications in preservation, as additives in plastics, in coatings, on textiles, in paper, in cosmetics, in pharmaceutical formulations or corresponding containers, in home or personal care applications and the like, be it with natural and/or with synthetic materials, and for other corresponding uses.